The entire repair process was filmed and you can see the 42-minute job embedded after the break. There’s a lot of stuff crammed inside that oscilloscope, and we see a tour of it all at the beginning of the video. Once [Jerry] gets down to business he traces the problem to a JK Flip-Flop used to feed the display. The output appears correct at first, but the clock signal is not functioning as expected. His solution is to use an MSP430 chip to replace the Flip-Flop functions.

But he didn’t leave it in there… he said he might actually replace the chip in the future. He only used the TI MSP430 to emulate the 4027 for testing purposes. In the end he only added an 8.6v+ line to the vfd.

I don’t think this was that bad. It’s not like he threw a $50 microcontroller development board in there just because that was the only tool he knew how to use so to him that was the solution to every problem.

He just used what he had on hand, a cheaper than dirt MSP430 and made his nice tool work again. I can’t watch the video from here but assuming he has it mounted in a reasonably secure way I wouldn’t bother changing anything. It works! He’s only out an MSP430. Why order a new chip, pay shipping, wait, wait some more, wait even longer, finally get the chip and have to open the scope up again. Instead he can be just using it!

It would be fun to be a fly on the wall if he ever sold it and if the new owner had to do repairs on it, opened it up and had a nice WTF moment. What are the odds of that though?